Category Archives: Competitive Analysis

Case Study on Capital Cycle: Tidewater

Below is a case study of the capital cycle using Tidewater as an example. This page will be updated over time. This is not an investment recommendation but an ongoing case study.

Capital Cycle Case Study: http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/JAC-Case-Study-Capital-Cycle-and-Tidewater-1.pdf

Since Tidewater has been in business since 1955, its service is needed, but this is–at best–no more than an average business with no long-term competitive advantage. Currently, there is a trade-off between a decline in intrinsic value as time progresses without economic charter rates versus Tidewater’s competitive advantage over financially distressed competitors.

Update: 4/17/20

Tidewater filed to protect its $300 million in NOLs and $388 million in foreign tax credits. As an investor, you know that the NOLs can be worth more than $0 to worth a whole lot.

Meanwhile, Hornbeck (HOSS), a competitor filed for bankruptcy.

Update: 4/21/2020 US Crude oil near-term futures trade at a negative price for the first time in history. Natural gas is rising in price as shut-in oil wells reduce natural gas supply. What we are witnessing is a massive destruction of capital and productive capacity thanks to covid-19 and negative global interest rates. The future might require far higher oil prices. Near-term one would expect more pressure on TDW’s price because of the fear in hydrocarbon markets.

Update: 4/22/2020 TDW does not seem to be declining with oil prices–a divergence that may be signaling some change–perhaps investors are looking out at the supply destruction in oil.

http://siemoffshore.com/Default.aspx?ID=9

4/25/20: Siem Management in their 2019 Shareholder letter move from hopeful to despair. (A good sign for Tidewater). These are dark days for the OSV industry and what you typically hear about in the depths of a downcycle.

The Siem Offshore is exposed to a number of risks. One of the most important risk factors is the demand for its services. The OSV market is now in its 7th year of depressed conditions and it has taken longer to recover than earlier expected. It is highly uncertain as to when charter rates will offer sufficient earnings for full debt servicing. The Company has been able to reduce its debt substantially over the last five years. Principal payment of debt instalments in 2019 was USD99 million (2018: 195 million). The significant debt reduction has been possible due to good cooperation between the Company and its financing banks, significant shareholder support, good ship operations and disposal of non-strategic and older assets. However, the significant excess capacity in the worldwide offshore service vessel fleet has increased the competition amongst owners for any vessel requirements, thereby depressing charter rates. The imbalance of supply and demand for offshore vessels is expected to remain for some years and will continue to put pressure on the charter rates and our cash flows. Five vessels were in lay-up at year-end 2019.

4/22/2020 OUTLOOK from Siem Offshore’s Annual Report. Despair!

The collapse in the oil price and the effect of the COVID-19 on the world’s economies have created a very different operating environment for our fleet. Field developments offshore are being cancelled or postponed by our clients and there will be much less work offshore during the coming several years. The demand for our services will therefore reduce rather than increase. At the end of last year, we looked forward to a gradual recovery in offshore activities and the nearing of balance in supply and demand in the OSV sector. That hope is now gone and we brace ourselves for a downturn probably worse than we have experienced during the past few years.

The actions required to achieve the best possible outcome when
confronted with the market difficulties include consolidations between and among debt-burdened owners, such as practically all OSV owners in Norway. This is the time when owners should work together to embrace the opportunities to survive until the end of a long, dark tunnel of slow activity in the market for all of our vessels. Only by working together can the right scheduling and layup of vessels be achieved. The cost saving would be an added benefit. Most of our lending banks are lenders to several if not all of the competing OSV owners and are in the position to influence this required development. Disappointedly, the banks do not appear willing or prepared to assume this vital role.

The financial problems are currently solved independently within each company giving the owners more time to compete fiercely with each other, all to the benefit of the clients. Owners are seen to take higher risks as the clients take advantage of the desperate situations to shift operating risks from the clients to the OSV owners. The latter accepts the risks because they have nothing more to lose. Ironically, it is the banks who are exposed to the contractual downside in this new reality. This has created an artificial, unhealthy and unsustainable competitive situation in our industry.

May 17, 2020 Update. Tidewater currently trades at $4.13 or about 24% below its scrap liquidation value if we take Hornbeck’s bankruptcy filing as a guide.

Tidewater had 157 vessels operating at the end of the year. It took 4 of its active fleet to sell. So let’s take 150 vessels times $2 million per vessel (See last page on Hornbeck Bankruptcy filing below) for 300 million sales/scrap value then minus $85 million net debt for $215 liquidation value divided by 42 million shares or $5.11 per share. At $4.13, TDW trades 24% below this value.

I realize that the next twelve to eighteen months will be extremely difficult for TDW as it races to scrap excess vessels and conserve cash, but I don’t think it is a certainty that TDW will have to restructure it debt or declare bankruptcy again, but the market is pricing for extreme events ALREADY. The issue is whether to add on weakness.

The biggest risk is if financiers continue to throw good money after bad in this OSV industry. We shall see.

Update on June 3, 2020. Robotti Letter to Tidewater Board on Poison Pill https://advisors.robotti.com/blog-items/carpe-diem-read-robottis-letter-to-the-tdw-board-re-consolidation/

Charts: Every Picture Tells a Story Don’t It? –Rolling Stones

Above is a chart of the Barrons Gold Mining Index, the oldest mining index available.

Above are chart analogs of past bear markets in gold-mining stocks. Rather than using charts to PREDICT the next “Head and Shoulders Bottom” or the next ROUNDING BOTTOM (How about I show you MY bottom?) what can charts tell you about this PARTICULAR industry?   How is that information useful? Or is it?

Note the hedged comments of the publisher of the above charts. https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/gold-bear-010420161

Charts have never shown (based on my research) to have any statistical predictive value because of the subjective nature of interpretation–there are always two sides to a chart. Buffett stopped charting when he could flip the chart over and get the same answer.   Note this article https://seekingalpha.com/article/82372-adventures-in-technical-analysis-jim-cramer-edition

Now onto the bull market analogs.

Bull Market Analogs Article

Notice the difference with these charts of housing and banks.

What might account for the difference in the chart patterns?  What do the charts tell you about the mining industry?  IF–god forbid–you did wish to invest in precious metals miners, how might you adapt your strategy?  What explains (mostly) the shape of the above charts?  It is perfectly rational to avoid the industry but what do the charts tell you about the structure of the industry? Whip out your competitive analysis books or http://mskousen.com/economics-books/the-structure-of-production/ and post your thoughts.

 

Hedge Fund Analyst Quiz–NG $3 The New Normal

Your boss runs into your office and slaps this report onto your desk: Don‘t Bet Against Innovation_Sub-$3 Is the New Normal

After reading the report and using your knowledge of how capital cycles work, what would you say to your boss about using the information in that report for investing?  IF you wanted to make an outstanding investment, then how might the report help you?   The video below might give you a hint.  Remember that the JP Morgan report goes to thousands of portfolio managers and analysts, so how can YOU use the information to have an edge? Or can you? Comments needed in order to keep your hedge fnd job.

Good luck!

 

An Industry in Disruption, AUTOS. Notes from a Capital Junkie. Tit-for-Tat Analysis

 

Sergio Marchionne Has Seen the Auto Industry’s Future: He’s Not Interested

By Sviatoslav Rosov, PhD, CFA

Read an excellent analysis of the auto industry: SM_Fire_investor_presentation

Sergio Marchionne often raises eyebrows.

This time, the Fiat Chrysler CEO went a step further than usual by declaring that the latest plan for the company is essentially a one-way bet on cheap gas. Production of compact cars will end to free up production capacity for high-margin, low-mileage Jeeps and RAM trucks.

This, combined with Fiat’s more or less complete lack of a fuel economy or electrification strategy beyond buying emissions credits from other manufacturers “foolish” enough to produce electric and hybrid “compliance cars,” is quickly making Marchionne, if not an industry joke, then certainly yesterday’s man.

At least, that is what people are saying. I have an alternate hypothesis.
The Auto Industry Is Not Heading to a Good Place (The author, in my opinion, has the correct thesis.  Ride sharing, Uber, Tesla, more complex electronics mean less demand and more investment to run in place).

 

 
Fiat vs. Ford above

Fiat (FCAU) has done slightly better than GM and much better than Ford (F).  However, the auto industry is in a bad place that will worsen.

The context is frightening. Global fuel economy and emissions regulations are becoming so strict that it is possible to meet them only with partial or full electrification of the automobile. And the existing automobile production system, based primarily on stamping sheet metal and amortizing heartbreaking development costs and capital expenditures over millions of units, is incredibly capital inefficient.

What’s more, the industry’s move towards electric vehicles represents a significant challenge to the traditional strategic landscape an automaker faces. An electric vehicle has drastically fewer moving parts than an internal combustion vehicle and is, by design, far more modular, meaning that barriers to new entrants are significantly lower.

Electric vehicles are also far more uniform in their driving dynamics, because there is little scope for refining an electric motor with one moving part. Swathes of engineering and marketing investments become irrelevant. And both ride-sharing enterprises and developments in automation seem increasingly likely to grow beyond niche markets into something properly disruptive to the car ownership business model.

Marchionne Knows This

Last year, Marchionne presented a uniquely critical slide deck about the way the auto industry destroys capital. His argument was that, unless the industry consolidates and stops duplicating engineering costs (e.g., every car manufacturer has its own separately developed but fundamentally identical 2.0L 4-cylinder petrol engine), then the market will eventually force its hand, having gotten sick of miserly returns on billions in investments.

The industry response to this slide deck was more or less complete agreement, with the caveat that competitors would not have to outlast the market so much as merely outlast Fiat Chrysler. Marchionne then pursued an odd and ultimately unsuccessful merger with GM’s Mary Barra, who confidently rejected Fiat Chrysler’s plan, noting, “We are merging with ourselves.” (This presumably referred to GM’s decades-long quest to bring rationality to its stable of brands.)
GM is not only merging with itself, it is also “disrupting” itself — as evidenced by their recently announced Chevy Bolt long-range, affordable electric car. The company claimed the Bolt was designed to be the perfect car for ride-sharing apps. Just before launching the Bolt, GM announced a $500 million investment into Lyft, the main competitor to Uber.

This no doubt surprised competitors who have been making efforts to disabuse markets and investors of the notion that they would become mere providers of hardware to ride-sharing companies like Uber or autonomous car suppliers like Google. Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, remarked “We do not plan to become the Foxconn of Apple.”

Manufacturers Are Going to Have to Invest

In fact, the bosses of Daimler, BMW, and Audi went looking behind the couch for some spare change to buy joint ownership of Nokia’s (remember them?) mapping service HERE, and did so primarily to stop their rival bidder – Uber – from buying it. High-resolution maps are crucial to autonomous cars; Uber’s CEO has said that, if Tesla can make good on their promise of a long-range, autonomous electric car, he would buy “all” of them.

The Germans are thus investing billions into electric vehicles made out of carbon fiber that pilot themselves using super-high resolution maps, all the while fighting back against Apple and Google’s requests for access to their cars’ infotainment systems. Their global leadership of the auto industry will have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.

Meanwhile, all the difficult bits of the Chevy Bolt (“custom-built” for Lyft, remember) are built in large part by Korea’s LG. One wonders why Lyft (or Uber) would not simply buy the next model directly from LG? I guess even if there is no Foxconn for cars yet, there may be soon. Remember, electric cars are far more modular than internal combustion cars.
Marchionne Says “No Thanks”

Or, if not him, then certainly the Agnelli family. A sort of Italian royalty who control Fiat Chrysler (and Marchionne) via their ownership of the Exor holding company, the Agnellis have been showing signs that they are tiring of the endless drama surrounding Fiat and the auto industry in general. They bought a stake in The Economist in 2015 in a move towards media, but the recent de-conglomeration of Fiat has been noticeable in other ways.

First, in 2013, Fiat’s industrial division was de-merged and combined with CNH Global (maker of tractors under the Case IH and New Holland brands) into a separate company, CNH Industrial. Most recently, Ferrari, the jewel in the Fiat Chrysler stable of brands, was floated in New York.

Speaking of Ferrari, Marchionne took advantage of a recent dip in the fortunes of Ferrari’s eponymous Formula 1 team to unceremoniously eject Luca di Montezemolo as president and chairman of Ferrari and replace him with . . . himself. It should be noted that di Montezemolo was appointed by Gianni Agnelli himself after the death of the founder, Enzo Ferrari, and is a bona fide business superstar in Italy. Marchionne has been playing an increasingly active part in the politics of Formula 1 recently, something that will no doubt continue to make for a less stressful (but still stimulating) retirement when Marchionne puts on his famous blue sweater for the last time in 2018.

But for now, Marchionne has seen the future. Large subcontractors will produce partially or fully autonomous electric vehicles, with the sole differences between them being brand value and design. The car makers that survive may well simply produce cars for Google (Ford recently signed an agreement along these lines), Apple, or Uber. Some, like BMW or Mercedes-Benz, may survive because of their brand and design qualities. Fiat Chrysler does not have this.

Marchionne doesn’t care about expensive gas or electric vehicles because his plan is simple:

Sell the profitable Jeep/RAM brands to another conglomerate that does not compete in these segments (for example, Hyundai KIA).
Sell the unprofitable Fiat to anyone who will take it. Perhaps synergies in the lucrative European light commercial vehicle segment will attract another European maker, such as PSA Peugeot Citroën, whose CEO, Carlos Tavares, has ambitions that were thwarted at his previous employer, Renault.
Sell Alfa Romeo and Maserati to someone who could use a strong brand. Perhaps Volkswagen will finally get hold of its prized Italian trophy if they can sort out their global legal woes.

Retire to play with his giant Formula 1 Scalextric set.
Marchionne has been mocked for his firms’ strategy, which has been attributed to hubris. But perhaps he is the one seeing clearest of all.
Is the best way to deal with disruption simply to step out of the way?
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Tit-for-Tat Competitive Analysis

Question: Who wins when–in a perfectly competitive market–competitors fight each other?    Prize awarded for best answer.

Is This Time Different? Expanding Your Circle of Competence

May 8, 2017This Time is Not Different, Because This Time is Always Different

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.

Reprint Policy

“History repeats – the argument for abandoning prevailing valuation methods regularly emerges late in a bull market, and typically survives until about the second down-leg (or sufficiently hard first leg) of a bear. Such arguments have included the ‘investment company’ and ‘stock scarcity’ arguments in the late 20’s, the ‘technology’ and ‘conglomerate’ arguments in the late 60’s, the nifty-fifty ‘good stocks always go up’ argument in the early 70’s, the ‘globalization’ and ‘leveraged buyout’ arguments in 1987 (and curiously, again today), and the ‘tech revolution’ and ‘knowledge-based economy’ arguments in the late 1990’s. Speculative investors regularly create ‘new era’ arguments and valuation metrics to justify their speculation.”

John P. Hussman, Ph.D., New Economy or Unfinished Cycle?, June 18, 2007. The S&P 500 would peak just 2% higher in October of that year, followed by a collapse of more than -55%.

“Old ways of valuing stocks are outdated. A technological revolution has created opportunities for continued low inflation, expanding profits and rising productivity. Thanks to these factors, the United States may be able to enjoy an extended period of expanding stock prices. Jumping out now would leave you poorer than you might become if you have some faith.”

– Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1999. While it’s tempting to counter that the S&P 500 would rise by more than 12% to its peak 10 months later, it’s easily forgotten that the entire gain was wiped out in the 3 weeks that followed, moving on to a 50% loss for the S&P 500 and an 83% loss for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100..

“Stock prices returned to record levels yesterday, building on the rally that began in late trading on Wednesday… ‘It’s all real buying’ [said the head of index futures at Shearson Lehman Brothers], ‘The excitement here is unbelievable. It’s steaming.’ The continuing surge in American stock prices has produced a spate of theories. [The] chief economist of Kemper Financial Services Inc. in Chicago argued in a report that, contrary to common opinion, American equities may not be significantly overpriced. For one thing, [he] said, ‘The market may be discounting a far-larger rise in future corporate earnings than most investors realize is possible, [and foreign investment] may be altering the traditional valuation parameters used to determine share-price multiples.’ He added, ‘It is quite possible that we have entered a new era for share price evaluation.’”

– The New York Times, August 21, 1987 (the S&P advanced by less than 1% over the next 3 sessions, and then crashed)

“The failure of the general market to decline during the past year despite its obvious vulnerability, as well as the emergence of new investment characteristics, has caused investors to believe that the U.S. has entered a new investment era to which the old guidelines no longer apply. Many have now come to believe that market risk is no longer a realistic consideration, while the risk of being underinvested or in cash and missing opportunities exceeds any other.”

– Barron’s Magazine, February 3, 1969. The bear market that had already quietly started in late-1968 would take stocks down by more than one-third over the next 18 months, and the S&P 500 Index would stand below its 1968 peak even 14 years later.

“The ‘new-era’ doctrine – that ‘good’ stocks (or ‘blue chips’) were sound investments regardless of how high the price paid for them — was at bottom only a means for rationalizing under the title of ‘investment’ the well-nigh universal capitulation to the gambling fever.”

– Benjamin Graham & David Dodd, Security Analysis, 1934, following the 1929-1932 collapse

“The recent collapse is the climax, but not the end, of an exceptionally long, extensive and violent period of inflation in security prices and national, even world-wide, speculative fever. This is the longest period of practically uninterrupted rise in security prices in our history… The psychological illusion upon which it is based, though not essentially new, has been stronger and more widespread than has ever been the case in this country in the past. This illusion is summed up in the phrase ‘the new era.’ The phrase itself is not new. Every period of speculation rediscovers it.”

– Business Week, November 1929. The market collapse would ultimately exceed -80%.

See http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc170508.htm

Referred to: This time seems very very different Grantham

This time is not different, because this time is always different.

Throwing in the towel

When a boxer is taking a beating, to avoid further punishment, a towel is sometimes thrown from the corner as a token of defeat. Yet even after the towel is thrown, a judicious referee has the right to toss the towel back into the corner and allow the fight to continue.

For decades, Jeremy Grantham, a value investor whom I respect tremendously, has championed the idea, recognized by legendary value investors like Ben Graham, that current profits are a poor measure of long-term cash flows, and that it is essential to adjust earnings-based valuation measures for the position of profit margins relative to their norms. In Grantham’s words, “Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance, and if profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism.”

He learned this lesson early on, during the collapse that followed the go-go years of the late-1960’s. Grantham once described his epiphany: “I got wiped out personally in 1968, which was the last really crazy, silly stock market before the Internet era… I became a great reader of history books. I was shocked and horrified to discover that I had just learned a lesson that was freely available all the way back to the South Sea Bubble.”

In recent weeks, Grantham has essentially thrown in the towel, suggesting “this time is decently different”:

“Stock prices are held up by abnormal profit margins, which in turn are produced mainly by lower real rates, the benefits of which are not competed away because of increased monopoly power… In conclusion, there are two important things to carry in your mind: First, the market now and in the past acts as if it believes the current higher levels of profitability are permanent; and second, a regular bear market of 15% to 20% can always occur for any one of many reasons. What I am interested in here is quite different: a more or less permanent move back to, or at least close to, the pre-1997 trends of profitability, interest rates, and pricing. And for that it seems likely that we will have a longer wait than any value manager would like (including me).”

I’ve received a flurry of requests for my views on Grantham’s shift.

My simple response is to very respectfully toss Grantham’s towel back into the corner.

Here’s why.

First, Grantham argues that much of the benefit to margins is driven by lower real interest rates. The problem here is two-fold. One is that the relationship between real interest rates and corporate profit margins is extremely tenuous in market cycles across history. Second, the fact is that debt of U.S. corporations as a ratio to revenues is more than double its historical median, leaving total interest costs, relative to corporate revenues, no lower than the post-war norm.

The last three months of 1999 were just about the sickest thing I’d ever seen. It was an orgy, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to buy a stock that was up $10m, hoping it would go up $15, even though it was overvalued by $100. But by choosing to sit out most of the ramp, determined to wait for the inevitable implosion, I was the Greatest Fool of All, as those around me made mind-numbing profits as, day after day. YHOO, AMZN and CGMI would gap $10 a day, immune to gravity as the Nazz, aka NASDAQ, ripped right past 3000 and didn’t even blink rocketing past 4,000. At the end of the year, the Nazz was up 83 percent, a far cry from the 5 to 7 percent stocks had returned historically. People were too busy celebrating and shouting “It’s different this time.” to realize such an adjustment was unsustainable.  It is like a guy who averages five home runs a year suddenly hitting fifty. Something is not right in Mudville. —Confessions of a Wall Street Insider: A Cautionary Tale of Rats, Feds, And Banksters by Michael Kimelman

 

Expanding your circle of competence-Platforms and Networks

Note what Prof. Greenwald says about Amazon and Apple.   If Apple is JUST a product company then I would agree, but what if Apple has network effects with its music and iPods for example?

http://csinvesting.org/2016/09/15/amazon-is-disappearing-says-prof-greenwald-of-columbia-gbs/

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/204202/professor-greenwald-thinks-apple-can-go-sonys-or-nokias-way

Don’t take expert opinion without heavily salted skepticism.    What do YOU think?

SHORTING the FANGS: http://www.businessinsider.com/fang-stocks-have-cost-short-sellers-this-year-2017-5   How do you value a company with almost $0 (zero) marginal costs?

We will delve deeper in the next post.

 

PS: info@Santangels.com   to sign up for value investing info.

 

Edison Schools CS on Econ. of Scale, Part II

http://csinvesting.org/2017/04/13/hedge-fund-quiz-economies-of-scale/ for the last post on this case study.  Note excellent comments by readers.

Readers provide excellent analysis

The twenty-minute time limit was to force you to concentrate on the key issue: Does this company have economies of scale?   Because of it doesn’t, then growth will NOT help profitability.  In fact, growth with losses financed by debt can be financially lethal.

Part of improving as an investor is avoiding the disasters as this company turned out to be. Bad Management_Has Avenues Mastermind Chris Whittle Learned His Lesson and Failure in For Profit Education are two articles that chronicle the investor and management failures in the For-Profit-Education Sector.

The goal of this case study is to practice:

Our 10-K reading skills and our analysis of competitive advantage.   Despite how CRITICAL it is for an investor/management to determine and distinguish competitive advantages, structural advantages are often confused with outcomes or efficiency.

Competitive advantage

Competitive advantage refers to something specific–a structural barrier that prevents competitors from simply replicating the results of a successful business.  It should not be surprising that the terms competitive advantage and barriers to entry are interchangeable.

Without barriers to entry, a business cannot long enjoy an advantage over competitors that will quickly do the obvious—enter. This process of new entry will hurt not only relative performance but also absolute performance, as competition for customers dampens revenues, and competition for resources raised costs.

FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE

First, it is NOT a competitive advantage.   But here is an example of having a first mover advantage.   You and I are in a duel.  We walk ten paces away from each other then turn and shoot the other.  After three paces, you turn around and shoot me in the back–now THAT is a first mover advantage.

Scale not size matters

It is industry structure determines which categories are most likely to manifest themselves and in what form.

Size doesn’t matter, but scale does. Scale is a relative concept, not an absolute one. The benefit it bestows are relative to peers within the relevant competitive set.

Look at WD 40_VL the company has a competitive advantage in PRODUCT SPACE.   WD-40 is the ubiquitous oil/lubricant that people keep in their tool-box/shelf/or under the sink.  They own 90% of the lubricant market.   However, they also di-worsify their free cash flow into hand soap and motor-cycle products.   Now the stock is over-priced in my opinion. If management could sell off its non-competitive products, and then become a tontine (use free-cash flow to buy in all shares)–investors would flourish.

Having 2% of a 10 billion dollar market or $100 million in sales is probably not as profitable as having sales of 40% of a 200 million dollar market or $80 million in sales.

Scale matters most when fixed costs matter most relative to the business’s overall cost structure. With large fixed costs, the operator serving the most customers will have a significant advantage due to its ability to spread those costs over more unit sales. If the costs of a business were entirely variable and increased proportionally as it grew, there would no advantage to scale.   The extent of the advantage is determined by how relatively important fixed costs are how relatively large the business is compared to the next competitor. Second, much of what is thought of as traditional fixed costs in school management—admin, school relations and lobbying, and even curriculum development—has a significant variable component.

Curriculum requires local customization. The two primary sources of fixed-cost scale in education generally are content development on the one hand and sales and marketing on the other.

Reading the 10-K

We jump to page 27: Selected financial data and see rising sales financed by issuing shares and debt.  Yet costs are not declining as a percentage of sales.  Ebitda is declining per student.  1999 revenues of $133 million almost triple to $376 million in 2001 yet operating cash flows decline from negative $17.6 to negative $29.3.

Remember the little red school house?   Edison Schools has to provide services in a regional area.   If they can develop density (or clustering as management mentions on page 16 under competitive strengths) in particular regions, then perhaps this company needs more time to show progress?  To determine their success in implementing a “clustering strategy, the next pages to peruse are pages 13-15 where you can see where Edison is operating schools.  Take a large state like Colorado. Edison has two schools in Denver and three in Colorado Springs.   Washington, DC, a huge metro area, only has eight schools and on and on.   Management will not be able to leverage their admin, curriculum and development cost over such a widely dispersed area.

Imagine running a carting/garbage pick-up service where you have 5 customers in Eastern Connecticut, seven in New Jersey, 4 in Texas, you would go broke just driving to the different customers. You would lack customer density in your routes, so your costs would be too high.

PASS!   Then if the analyst had more time, he/she could look at management.  He or she would uncover the ugly history of Chris Whittle.   No mention of that in the Credit Suisse analyst 50-page report.

Studying competitive advantages like economies of scale, customer captivity, network effects, low-cost producer will pay-off.   Practice reading case studies of success and failure will help you hone your skills.

Note companies in the educational sector with advantages: Bright Horizons_VL and Grand Canyon LOPE

One of the best books I have found on studying competitive analysis is

Strategic_Logic (Strategic Logic link will be down in 36 hours, so join the Deep-Value Group by following the links http://csinvesting.org/2015/01/14/deep-value-group-at-google/ and ask for a copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsvnvV3wDgc Greenwald of Columbia Business School discusses local advantages.

The trilogy of books, Competitive Demystified, The Curse of the Mogul, and Class Clowns will also provide more depth to your studies:


 

 

 

Indexing Madness or An Indexing Bubble

A must see discussion of today’s index investing distortions

http://horizonkinetics.com/market-commentary/4th-quarter-2016-commentary/   What will turn the tide for active investors. Or read commentary : Q4-2016-Commentary_Final

https://vimeo.com/209940152/f2154e4d3d Grant’s Conference Presentation

Kinetics_Market_Opportunities_11.02.2016

Q2 2016 Commentary FINAL (See section on ETFs vs. Individual Stocks)

Articles of interest:

A Great Learning Site

Fantastic sources of information here:  http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~moyr/videoonyoutube.htm

A good microcap investor to study: http://otcadventures.com/

If you enjoy learning about management (founders beat bureacrats every time) and business–especially one of the greatest franchises of all time–then this movie is for you:

Case Study of a 100 Bagger: Middleby

m-aurelius

midd-chart

https://microcapclub.com/2016/05/middleby-corporation-midd-case-study-intelligent-fanatic-led-100-bagger/

How many lessons can you pull out of this case study?

Also, a must read on finding fanatics: https://microcapclub.com/2016/01/how-to-find-intelligent-fanatic-ceos-early/

More studies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOEE8GI-Ko

SEARCH STRATEGY: Look off the beaten path (Joel Greenblatt)

https://youtu.be/sYJaF86zY0E

 

Greenwald: The Death of Manufacturing; Deep Value Investing in Juniors

Prof. Greenwald on competitive advantage, the shift to services and why profit margins are so high and may remain so.



Most recent interview of Prof. Greenwald

You should think through Prof. Greenwald’s thoughts. Regarding investing, it is the art of the specific, so don’t let the the above macro talk affect your investing too much. I do agree that service companies develop competitive advantage through either product economices of scale or regional economies of scale.

Ajit Jain: 32_KeyInfluencers_AjitJain

DEEP VALUE INVESTOR IN THE JUNIOR GOLD MINERS

https://jayant.liberty.me/   His Blog

Bhandari-High Risk High Reward in Junior Mining Companies

Game on or con on: Fraud in Junior Mining Equities:  http://insider.kitco.com/GyBhN/mining-equities/  or having fun with your money. The key is the lack of quality deposits!

Let me know what YOU think.